


playing trains (hope is our four-letter word, make that money, watch it burn)

by Taraxac



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Fucked Up Relationships, Gen, I promise there's fluff, Male-Female Friendship, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, at least by my understanding, dear ones, have headcanons, i haven't finished the remake yet i just, maybe contradicted by canon?, results of a capitalist dystopia and rampant exploitation and dehumanization of the populace, teen! aerith, teen!reno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taraxac/pseuds/Taraxac
Summary: there are a lot of ways up in the world, and a lot of reasons to seek them. Sometimes those reason's are one's friends. Sometimes they're self-serving.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Reno, Reno & Tseng (Compilation of FFVII)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	playing trains (hope is our four-letter word, make that money, watch it burn)

It's the rattle and the shake that he likes best, that he navigates by. That low thrum that could be felt just under the skin from as far as a block from the station, on a calm day. The force of it shivering up through the soles in his shoes to the bones in his legs and his arms and his chest. The force of it almost shakes him off his feet as the train screeches into the station and sometimes, onlookers, start screeching too.

Reno swears by this resonance. That it's a better indicator of speed and distance than the oncoming rush of lights. And hell. He's still alive isn't he? More than a lot of kids who'd played this game could say.

Trains.

It's an art, maybe. Or maybe he's just lucky, but he's not convinced of that. And he wonders, with the rattle and the shake and the lights bearing down on him for the second time this week, if one of these days he's going to fuck up. And more importantly, if he'll notice it. The moment just before the vibration actually knocks him off his feet. The moment before he drops below the track and his hand slips. Will he know? He isn't really sure what good it will do him. He'll be a smear on the track and less than a sentence in the nightly sector news before he can think so much as a 'well fuck you Reno' about it. But he hopes that he will. Just on principle. Might as well learn something from the mistake even if he'd only know it for a couple of seconds. That's what people always said right? Learn from your mistakes.

He isn't really sure what they mean by that either. He's never heard of very many mistakes that won't get you killed the first time around. That's just the normal stakes of things.

So it's the rattle and the shake that he hones in on today. Just like Wednesday. Just like the Friday before that. Keeps his eyes closed and his breath still so can't neither of the two throw him off that rhythm of the wheels on the rails. Of the horn blaring as it gets close and the conductor starts to lose their shit.

Think they'd be used to it by now. Shiva knows he is.

And he waits. Just seconds, but waits. Waits until he can't hear a thing but the train. Can't feel a thing but the shattering, shaking rumble of its weight and its speed shaking through him until he can't feel nothing else.

And he steps back.

And he drops.

__

“It almost seems like you can touch them sometimes, doesn't it?”

She's got her fingers splayed out, one fingertip on each blinking light in half of an electronic constellation. They found it out themselves, and decided to call it Snowflake. Though only one of them had ever seen actual real snow before.

“Touch 'em? They're like a hundred meters or some shit up, sis.”

He's got his fingers laced behind his head, and his elbow on her knee. Comfortable. The both of them looking towards a sky that pops and moans with the season getting colder. Sheet metal and bulb lights. Constellations.

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

She doesn't have to lower her hand or her gaze to knock him over, just kick a little and his whole balance is gone and he's knocking his knuckles against something smooth and metal, and wincing. Some discarded bit of the city that's grown into the solid, almost-earthen mass of a hill they like to hang on.

Get a good view up here. The sky, such as they know it, unobstructed. And can't nobody sneak up on them for ages.

“Jus’ sayin',” and he is just saying. Just saying that while maybe he hasn't ever seen no other sky than this, he knows she has, and he knows that that ain't right. That she's stuck with this one now. That the other one is something she gets quiet when he asks her about, even though her eyes shine. With what exactly, that he ain’t always sure.

“Hey Aer?”

“Reno?”

She doesn't look at him. Doesn't move. Doesn't need to.

Before he actually knows what he’s doing he’s jumping to his feet, and planting his boots in the packed in dirt and scrabble; pointing skyward like he’s made some kind of decision. He’s pretty sure he has.

“Betchya fifty gil you can grow flowers up there. Real ones, yo.”

“I can grow flowers down here just fine!” Laughing but unamused. Her hand in his pocket, pulling on him, making him sway.

“At the church yeah, but that's just one place, yo. Betchya you could grow flowers everywhere upside. Sun an' all. Betchya you could-”

“Sit down silly!”

She's half laughing for real now, and half afraid. And that isn't what he wants and he lets her pull him down, lets his ass hit the dirt and remnants of other peoples lives bite into the palms of his hands, and he laughs too.

You and me sis. We ain't the same. You weren't born here, and I ain't gonna let you rot here. Just wait. Just you wait.

Betchya could grow all kinds of flowers, if you could just get 'em where they could touch the sun.

Betchya it won’t be so scary anymore, once you actually get there.

Sure as shit hope I get to see it with you.

“Don’t be the fun police. You’ll see!”

__

It’s a routine now. The same day of week, the same food cart, the same talking around of instructions. But today it’s not. Today Tseng isn’t saying anything. Or rather he is but Reno knows, he knows, its not what Tseng wants to be saying and that.

He knows already that that alone isn’t a trap but it’s sure not a guaranteed job either.

“The fuck’s wrong with you today, bossman?”

Tseng actually...not chokes, but pauses a little in the bite of spicy vegetables he’s taking. Almost glances at him. Chews a little more thoughtfully maybe. Something like that. Whatever it is he does a little different Reno see’s it, and that makes the moment of disrespect worth it. Because he sees that. Because it means, respectful or not, he’s right.

“Really, Reno. What can you mean by that?”

“You tell me.” Tseng’s eyes do actually dart to him this time and he looks down quickly, hides his face in the act of devouring a sandwich and a ‘soda water’, because he knows that this one, this one was overstepping.

He really can’t lose Tseng as a...client? Employer? Whatever he is.

And he really doesn’t _want_ to lose Tseng as the tenuous …

Well. He doesn’t want to lose it.

And Tseng surprises him, which isn’t actually surprising but is still pretty cool because most people don’t do it nearly so often, by softening.

“Yes, there is something bothering me. A concern I am unable to leave at the office. It was my mistake to let it show.” Tseng straightens in his seat, and Reno does too, actually choking a little on bread and spam and bean-sprouts, because that isn’t good. That isn’t what he wants. That means Tseng is getting ready to leave. “My apologies.”

What he wants is for Tseng to tell him.

 _Especially_ because he thinks he has a pretty good idea about what it might be.

And he wants to make Tseng happy. To make him proud.

And also, he wants Tseng to pay him for it. Maybe not now, but eventually. Future jobs. Future …

Either he earns a suit or he’s disposable, right?

Right?

“Seong ain’t shit.” He manages, almost on his feet, almost properly around his messy bite. It’s not nearly as composed and confident as he’s been hoping, but it comes out. And Tseng hasn’t left. Not yet. “Leastways, ain’t shit you need to worry about. Not if even I know about ‘em, right?”

It’s a gamble and this time he feels lost.

“Thank you.” Is all Tseng says. “For understanding.” and what the fuck does that mean. But it’s not a no. It’s not a no and it’s not Tseng leaving him on the tab for this meal, and it’s not Tseng killing him which was really what the second worst case scenario of this was and….

And Tseng walks away, and Reno finishes his sandwich and his not-soda-water, and he plans.

And it’s a good plan. So good he wants to tell Aer about it.

He doesn’t.

__

Seong is lazy.

Okay, Seong isn’t lazy but they are overconfident and that means they don’t always keep up on brines and to Reno, that is lazy.

And dumb.

And deeply advantageous.

Because that means that nobody checks his hair for a garrote when he gets himself invited to a party.

He’s a little sick for a whole day, after. Almost two, but only babies are sick for two whole days, over anything.

He chalks it up to nerves. Or whatever.

He could call Tseng. Maybe. He has a number but it’s for emergencies. Reno doesn’t really know what an ‘emergency’ means.

__

“Hah!” The screen lights up and Aerith jumps away from the controls and absolutely dances.

He’s actually, personally, mortally affronted because she is never, _never_ that enthusiastic about winning. Except with him apparently. And he almost never let’s _that_ happen. “I win! You owe me!”

“Do not!”

“Yeah you do! You owe me for last year when you said I’d never make it to level 4.”

She bats at him and he steps back, in defense. But if he remembers know, she might be right. “Never said that, yo. Do it again an’ then I’ll owe ya. C’mon!”

He shoves another coin into the machine and focuses. Smiling more than he means to when she does the same.

Not that long now, sis.

Just you wait.

__

Another Tuesday. Another report for Tseng, and, hopefully an exchange he gets out of alive.

He’d done the small thing Tseng had asked of him sure. Too small. The test, and he wasn’t sure exactly which one of them it was of, but it was for sure a test, was done too.

It was probably of him. He didn’t imagine even having that power, but he did imagine having more than he has, right now.

That’s why he’s asked Tseng, for the first time since the first time, to meet him somewhere other than their usual.

That’s why it's a Sunday and Reno has his boots up on the counter of a deli that doesn’t even serve Boa, because they suck, but it’s closer to his work than to Tsengs and that’s it’s own test to now ain’t it.

Yeah. Yeah, he can do this. The other part was supposed to be the hard part right? He can do this.

And if he doesn’t he’s dead anyway so. So what?

He tears, casually, deliberately, into a slice of pizza.

Tseng, deliberately, he thinks at least, does not drink his wine, or look at his salad.

But it’s not too different. Not really. Not any worse than the first time they’d met up like this.

“So Seong still bothering you...bossman?”

Not any worse than the knowledge that he has only ever half known where the gun is under Tseng’s coat.

Or the knowledge that someday, if he plays it wrong, Tseng won’t do this part anymore. The part where they talk.

It's harder than he planned. To get his eyes off his own ankles crossed on the table, get his gaze up to catch Tsengs with. But he manages it, if a second or two late. And there is Tsenf staring him down like headlights. And there is he, eyes open for once. Because this train isn't one he can hear coming.

He's got a packet of cheap smokes in the pocket of his jacket. He takes one out now. Lights it. Doesn't break eye contact. Breathes.

“Just baggage, yeah? Ain't you supposed to pass that off on someone else anyway?”

Doesn't feel a centimeter of the casual he's forcing into his own frame.

If he's misjudged this -

If he was wrong -

Rattle and shake, baby. It's coming off Tsengs shoulders and out of his eyes and on the cloud of his breath.

Reno pulls the smoke right in, and doesn't look away.

And it passes.

“Seong is not...a problem. Anymore.”  
__

And if he’s dead yet? He don’t know it yet. What he knows is the cold and the catch of the metal in his hands when he hits the mark on the way down, and the glowing ache as he hangs there. The train will pass. And if he holds on he’ll have the money in his pocket to feed himself another couple days, and to put some away for a train ticket upside, _and_ some to put away for one of those for himself, too.

If he holds on.

He can’t feel his fingers or his hands or really anything but rattle anymore. Anything but the shake. But he’s used to that by now. Likes it, even.

If he holds.

**Author's Note:**

> inspiring song is Counting Stars by OneRepublic bc i never let go of an idea ever


End file.
